


Falling into the Leaves

by elfenphoenix



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Autumn, Bickering, Fluff, M/M, cute fluff, enemies-to-friends-to-something-else, klance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-04 23:29:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12178602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elfenphoenix/pseuds/elfenphoenix
Summary: Keith and Lance never stop bickering, and it's driving their teachers crazy. In a fit of desperation, their favorite, eccentric teacher, Coran, sends them out to rake leaves together, where at least they can do something constructive with that energy. But, then again, there's something magical about autumn...





	Falling into the Leaves

Inspired by a bit of [beautiful artwork](http://elfenphoenix.tumblr.com/post/165677959873/miluuu-happy-first-day-of-autumn-pushed-to) by [miluuu](http://miluuu.tumblr.com/) on tumblr! Check their art out, it's very beautiful!

~~~~~

Whatever Lance had against him, Keith was getting a bit sick of it. He didn’t _remember_ one-upping him, like Lance claimed, and no, he didn’t remember Lance transferring into his class the year before. He’d been preoccupied by the teachers always getting in his face, always complaining about not having permission slips for things (newsflash: when you don’t _really_ have parents, there’s no one to sign the damn slip), so it wasn’t his fault he hadn’t really noticed him. But he had paid for that with an entire month of constant bickering. The teachers had already deliberately put the two of them in opposite corners of the room to quell the arguments, with Mr. Smythe, who preferred to go by his first name, Coran, stubbornly remaining the exception.

Coran insisted that they only argued so much because they were more similar than they were different, but Keith failed to see it. Lance was always surrounded by people, floating seamlessly from clique to clique while Keith still felt like an outsider in his own school, sitting by himself and just trying to get through each day. Lance was loud, Keith was quiet. They were blue and red, fire and ice, and they weren’t going to mix just because Coran insisted that they would.

But eventually even Coran reached his limits, when Keith and Lance had been “randomly assigned” to work together in groups on their chemistry lab, and had argued so much the entire time about how it was supposed to be done and who would do what that before they’d known it, they’d tipped over the entire glass distillation apparatus and splashed boiling liquid all over the floor.

They were lucky it wasn’t acidic or anything, but the class still had to evacuate their lab stations, and Coran had been furious, if that’s the word to use for it. Even then, he didn’t seem _angry_ so much as frustrated and disappointed. Keith leaned over to try to clean it up right away, but Coran quickly waved him away. “No, no no no no. Nope, the two of you have made enough of a mess already! I’ll clean this up properly, and in the meantime, the two of you are going to go to the gym teacher, Mr. Gyrgan, and get some rakes, go outside and rake the leaves in the school’s front yard! Use some of that extra energy and put it into being constructive!”

He patted them both on the shoulder, and then gave them a push toward the door, and, sulking, Keith and Lance did as told and went to the gym, requested the rakes, and went outside, not speaking to each other or even making eye contact the whole time.

Keith was angry at himself for letting Lance make him lose his temper _again_ , especially in Coran’s class. He’d actually kind of liked Coran, who didn’t ask too many questions, and actually seemed to give a shit about Keith’s personal situation. But whatever. Just one more person Keith had disappointed.

He grudgingly began raking the leaves in silence, lost in his own thought and frowning with his whole face, just trying to get the job done as much as possible so he could get back inside. It was chilly out in the early October air, even in his insulated black sweater, and he was already beginning to sniffle.

“WOOHOO!”

Suddenly Lance was racing past him, launching himself into the pile of leaves at the end of the schoolyard. As he ran, his feet gusted up a bunch of leaves around Keith, messing up his work and blowing leaves in his face. As Lance crashed into the pile of leaves, the pile scattered and gave way under his weight, springing back against him until he clambered back out, his hair and clothes now scattered with red, brown, yellow maple and oak leaves. He grinned happily, turning back to Keith and brushing the leaves out of his hair.

“What the hell, Lance! We’re supposed to be out here to work, not screw around!” Keith yelled, glaring fiercely at him.

“Dude, just chill out a bit sometimes. Don’t you ever wanna just play in the leaves? We don’t really get recess now that we’re in high school, so I wanna use every opportunity I get!”

Keith frowned deeper. “You act like you’ve never seen fall before.”

“Well… I haven’t.”

Keith blinked, unable to stop staring as Lance looked around at the tree-filled schoolyard in wonder, his face filled with pure joy, his rake completely forgotten. His eyes glimmered the blue of the autumn sky as he crouched down and ran his hands through the leaves, tossing them into the air and watching the vivid colors spiral through the air around him like fire.

Keith cleared his throat, looking down at his feet. “What do you mean… you’ve never seen it before?”

Lance straightened, finding his rake and leaning against it lazily. “I moved here in the winter last year, so I saw snow, but not the leaves. Awkward time for a Cuban family who’d lived in Florida for the past forty years to move up north, but that’s just how it worked out. Not that you’d remember that, since you didn’t even know I was in your class,” he added bitterly.

Keith groaned. “ _Why_ are you so stuck on that? So I didn’t notice you, so what?! I know you now, don’t I?”

Lance contemplated this, then snapped his jaw shut and began aggressively raking the leaves, falling again into silence.

It should have been a comfortable silence, but it wasn’t, since Keith felt like Lance wanted to say something, but hadn’t, and it was eating at him the more time they spent raking the leaves. The tension kept building and building the more time they spent _not_ talking, so it wasn’t that surprising when Keith finally snapped over something small.

“Hey, would you stop raking the leaves _toward_ me?!”

“I’m sorry, weren’t _you_ the one who said that we were out here to work, not play?”

“I just keep having to clean up after you!”

“Oh, do you want to have some more?” Lance challenged, purposely sweeping a clump of leaves toward Keith, and Keith ducked so that the wet, slimy ones at the bottom of the pile weren’t hitting him in the face.

“Don’t you dare.”

Lance smirked. “Your move, Mullet.”

“Okay, then, take THIS!”

He completely destroyed his newest pile, throwing it at Lance, completely dousing him in leaves. But the other boy didn’t seem particularly annoyed, the sparkle in his eyes Keith had seen earlier already returning as he retaliated, whipping more of the pile at Keith.

Back and forth they went, Keith completely swept up in the competitiveness of it, their job totally forgotten. He dived into the pile of leaves, laughing as Lance spit out a maple leaf that had smacked him in the face, diving into the pile after Keith, until they were just sitting there in the leaves, throwing fistfuls of natural fire at each other. Both of them had 100% forgotten the whole reason they were fighting, as wrapped up in the battle as they’d been. In fact, they’d forgotten the whole reason they were out there in the first place.

They collapsed backward in the leaves, staring up at the sky above them, their laughter fading out into the empty schoolyard, peaceful silence falling around them just as gently as the leaves fell down from the trees.

“I’m sorry I messed up our chemistry experiment,” Lance admitted with a sigh. “I just feel like I gotta prove myself, y’know? Being the new kid and all, you take on the toughest kid in school to prove you’ve got the stuff.”

“You think _I’m_ the toughest guy in school?!”

“Aren’t you?”

Whatever Keith was about to answer, they were interrupted by Coran’s voice from the doorway to the school. “Just what have you whippersnappers been doing?! This place is more of a mess than it was when I sent you out here! And where are you, anyway?! You didn’t run out, did you?!”

Keith and Lance jumped up from the pile of leaves, brushing themselves off quickly and running back to Coran, whose disappointed frown melted into a mouth gaping in surprise behind his obnoxious orange mustache.

“Were you both fighting again?” he asked suspiciously, as soon as he recovered.

Keith bit back a smile, meeting Lance’s matching expression. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Coran raised an eyebrow, glancing back and forth between the two of them, then put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “Well, it can’t be helped. I can’t keep you out here all day, after all, or they’ll call me a bad teacher! Come on back inside. D’you think you can try the experiment again, during your free period? That way I won’t have to downgrade you.”

Keith and Lance glanced at each other, then grinned and nodded, as if suddenly able to read each other’s minds. “Yeah… yeah, I think we can do it this time.”

Coran still seemed confused by this answer, but he smiled proudly to himself as if he’d somehow unlocked their secret. “Alright, then, I’ll see you after lunch, boys! Don’t forget, as long as you’ve got chemistry, you can understand the makings of the universe!”

He babbled on, and the two boys just followed him into the doors of the school, chuckling to themselves.

~~~

As soon as school was over, Keith was surprised to see Lance waiting for him by the main doors, holding a pair of rakes. As he approached, Lance held out one of the rakes with a tentative smile. “I feel bad making more of a mess than cleaning, so… maybe we should finish what we started before we head back… if that’s okay with you.”

Keith hesitantly reached out and took the rake from him, following him out into the schoolyard and working quickly on the well-scattered leaves as the other students passed them by, chattering about homework and after-school activities and playing video games at each other’s houses. They were still working when the schoolyard emptied, and when it did, they found themselves talking to each other, barely even thinking about what was said, the words just kind of flowing out. About Lance’s family moving north, about Keith transferring yet another foster home, maybe the two of them trying out for a sport together.

Finally they finished, sweeping all of the leaves into one big, bushy pile of autumn fire, sweating despite the chill air. They set their rakes aside, staring satisfactorily at their work.

“Hey, Keith… you wanna come to my place and get some hot cocoa?” Lance suggested, unzipping his hoodie and wiping sweat off his forehead.

“Y-yeah, I think that… would be nice.” He smiled hesitantly, then looked back at the massive pile of leaves. “But first… you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Most definitely.”

And then the two of them launched themselves into the piles, laughing as they were embraced by the autumn foliage. When they finally extricated themselves, returned the rakes to the equipment shed, and began making their way to Lance’s house, the sun had begun to fade, making a beautiful interplay of the blue sky on one side, and the red clouds around the sun on the other, with streaks of light purple spreading between the two of them.

Autumn was a magical time, where fire and ice existed at the same time, where the fire in the leaves looked like it should warm up the cold air. Twilight was a magical time, when blue and red blended together to create a new, beautiful color painting the night sky.

That day was a magical time, when two boys who should have been opposites felt like they could finally blend together.


End file.
